This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art. This section also provides a general summary of the disclosure, and is not a comprehensive disclosure of its full scope or all of its features.
Often in the analysis of movement of a body there is a need to determine the net forces and moments acting on the body. Whether it be during gait analysis of a human or animal, during the analysis of the throwing motion of baseball pitchers or the impact of sports equipment, or even during rehabilitation from injury or surgery, researchers can benefit from knowing the net loads that are placed on a subject's joints, body portions, or the equipment being used. Using a variety of methods, in some cases, these loads can be translated into individual muscle and passive tissue loading which has direct applications to the identification and prevention of injuries. Unfortunately, in the case of human or animal analysis, without invasive surgery, it is very difficult to directly measure the net joint forces and moments which are collectively referred to as the joint kinetics. However, given some information about the kinematics (acceleration, angular velocity and angular acceleration) of a subject, the joint kinetics can be deduced using inverse dynamics. These principles are equally applicable to analyzing the movement of equipment or bodies during impact, free flight, or other uses.
According to the principles of the present teachings, an apparatus is provided for analyzing free flight of a body including an inertial measurement unit having at least one accelerometer continuously measuring three orthogonal axes of acceleration and outputting data representative thereof and a processing unit operably receiving the data and determining three components of the angular velocity of the body during free flight.
Further areas of applicability will become apparent from the description provided herein. The description and specific examples in this summary are intended for purposes of illustration only and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure.
Corresponding reference numerals indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views of the drawings.